Wednesday, April 25, 2007

Heather Mills knocked out of dance show

Heather Mills, the estranged wife of former Beatle Paul McCartney, has been voted off the US reality show 'Dancing with the Stars'.
The 39-year-old former model made it through to the sixth week of the show with her dance partner Jonathan Roberts before being eliminated.
Mills was ranked fifth by the judges, out of the seven remaining couples, placing her in the bottom two.

She then lost out on a place in next week's show when the public votes were counted.
Mills said: "We knew we were going out", adding that the public response to her had "been overwhelming".

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Steve McQueen Honored At Western Awards

Sam Elliott and the late Steve McQueen have been inducted into the Hall of Great Western Performers.
They were honored at the 46th annual Western Heritage Awards on Saturday. A sellout crowd of more than 1,200 attended the event at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum.
Veteran stuntman Dean Smith received the Board of Directors' Lifetime Achievement Award.

He has been a stunt-double for Roy Rogers, Dale Robertson, Ben Johnson, Robert Redford, Robert Duvall and Steve Martin, among others.

"What a great night you've made for this old cowboy. I'm glad to be included in this museum with all my heroes," Smith said. "I want to thank everyone who's helped me. I've spent a lifetime playing cowboys and Indians, competing in rodeos and making Western movies."
Elliott, 62, served as master of ceremonies.

McQueen died in 1980 at the age of 50. He starred in Western films including "The Magnificent Seven," "Junior Bonner" and "Nevada Smith." He also starred as Josh Randall in the popular 1950s TV series "Wanted: Dead or Alive."

"Truce," starring Buck Taylor and Michaela Lange, won the award for outstanding theatrical motion picture. "Broken Trail," starring Robert Duvall and Thomas Haden Church, won the award for outstanding television feature film.

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Bill Moyers Returns To PBS, Examining Role Of Press In Buildup To War

Like a definitive, clarifying exclamation point coming after a week of hit-or-miss documentaries in the "America at a Crossroads" series, "Bill Moyers' Journal" (CPTV, 9 p.m.) returns to public television after a 13-year absence with a devastating look at press failures in the run-up to the war in Iraq.The shameful ground has been covered elsewhere, in the "Frontline" series "News War" and in books such as Frank Rich's "The Greatest Story Ever Sold." But Moyers has a way of zeroing in on his topic and getting to its essence.
His authority allows him to get former CBS colleagues Dan Rather and Bob Simon to speak candidly about their pre-war reports. (Rather was caught up in the post-9/11 fervor; Simon said he could only comment on the selling of the war as a lighter piece on "60 Minutes.")Later, Moyers asks young pundits like Peter Beinart of The New Republic what gave them credibility as outspoken early supporters of war."Had you been to Iraq?" Moyers asks him. Moyers breaks real news when he has Phil Donahue reveal that his bosses at MSNBC insisted on two pro-war spokesmen on his show for every one against it.There are bright spots, as in a couple of reporters from McClatchy (formerly Knight-Ridder) who were virtually alone in questioning the war. But their scoops were generally ignored because their reports weren't carried in Washington.Moyers' return is reassuring after the meddling of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and its "America at a Crossroads" series. He is the strong, independent voice he has always been, surviving the witch hunt that ended with CPB chief Kenneth Y. Tomlinson's resigning in disgrace."Bill Moyers' Journal" settles into its regular time slot Friday at 9 p.m. on most PBS stations.Also On TonightAfter years of being TV's No. 1 show, "American Idol" (Fox, 8 p.m.) finally uses its muscle to attract star power and charity money with a quasi-telethon "Idol Gives Back."The unusual departure means the business of elimination is stretched to two hours as the episode shifts to a concert hosted by Ellen DeGeneres at the Walt Disney Concert Hall, with Celine Dion, Pink, Gwen Stefani, Annie Lennox, Josh Groban and others. Bono will also appear, interacting with the cast and getting them to sing one of his songs, "American Prayer."For the first time, you can call in on a Wednesday, but only to pledge money to help alleviate extreme poverty in America and Africa. Then, almost as an afterthought, someone is eliminated.It's one of the smaller mysteries on "Lost" (ABC, 10 p.m.), but Sun learns the identity of the father of her unborn child after she is examined by the suspicious Juliet.

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Chicago rolls again and puts Miami in 2-0 hole

Ben Gordon scored 27 points and Luol Deng had 26 to lead Chicago to a 107-89 victory over Miami on Tuesday night at Chicago, giving the Bulls a 2-0 lead over the defending champions in the Eastern Conference playoff series.Game 3 is Friday night at Miami."Basically, the Bulls did what they're supposed to do and protect their home court," Heat center Shaquille O'Neal said. "We have to play smarter basketball. We got to come with a lot more energy and play with a lot more effort and a lot more passion." O'Neal accused the Bulls of flopping and lashed out at referee Eddie F. Rush after Game 1, but said it was a "perfect game today" for the officials. It was anything but that for the Heat and its superstars. O'Neal and Dwyane Wade had subpar performances again after struggling through foul trouble in Game 1, finishing with 17 and 21 points, respectively. O'Neal was only six for 14 from the field with eight rebounds. Wade never really got going, making nine of 19. And both had seven turnovers. "We really can't make any excuses tonight," O'Neal said. "It was a well-played game. They just outplayed us. I had way too many turnovers."

Toronto 89, New Jersey 83 — Anthony Parker scored 26 points, Chris Bosh had 25 points and 13 rebounds and the Raptors evened their series against the Nets at one game apiece with a victory at Toronto.It was Toronto's first playoff victory since a 94-84 home win over Detroit on April 27, 2002. "We definitely turned a corner as a team tonight because we gutted it out, especially when things weren't going well," Parker said. "This was a game we had to have. We couldn't go to Jersey down 0-2. Now we've got to go to Jersey and get one." New Jersey's Bostjan Nachbar missed a three-point basket from the corner that would have tied the score with eight seconds to play. Game 3 is Friday night at New Jersey.

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Jennifer Lopez Works Hard For The Money

Jennifer Lopez will come to your party - for a price.
Russian banking tycoon Andrei Melnichenko is reportedly paying the singer-actress $2 million to perform at his wife's 30th birthday party.
International media report Lopez will receive $1.2 million for her 40 minute performance in the UK, with an additional $800,000 earmarked for expenses.
The 35-year-old Melnichenko's personal fortune is estimated near $5 billion.
In other Jennifer Lopez news, the U.S. Magazine Us has named her its Style Icon of the Year; she'll pick up her prize at a ceremony in Hollywood.

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Sanjaya sees busy future after 'Idol'

Sanjaya Malakar said Thursday he did it his way on "American Idol" and he'll take the same approach to a career that he hopes will encompass music, acting, modeling and whatever else comes his way.
The morning after Malakar was voted off Fox's hit show, the 17-year-old with the unique hairdos and hotly debated singing talent sounded tired but composed as he fielded questions during a teleconference.
Malakar, from Washington state, said he was surprised by the outpouring of support he received — "I'm just Sanjaya from Federal Way. ... I mean, it's crazy."
As for critics, he avoided letting the potshots get to him.
"It was a little hard but I try to make everything into a positive and try to learn from it," he said. "I feel like I've grown. I'm more confident because I've had this experience. ... I'm ready to go out there and do it some more."
His near future includes a scheduled appearance Monday in New York on "Live with Regis and Kelly," back home to Washington on Tuesday, the finale for "American Idol" next month and then an "Idol" concert tour with the other top 10 contestants.
Given the divided reaction to him, was he considering hiring a bodyguard as he emerges from the isolated "bubble" of "American Idol"? He's already looking into it, he said.
After that: college, with the Berklee College of Music in Boston his goal, and a wide-ranging career that will probably include performances with his sister, Shyamali, 19, who unsuccessfully auditioned for "Idol."
With his run on the show just ended, he said, "I haven't had the opportunity to get any offers but I'm sure they will come."
"I just want the full entertainment business and career, I guess," he said, searching for words and sounding at times very much like the teenager he is.
Malakar, who gave the world the "ponyhawk" hairstyle and at times left brutally erudite judge Simon Cowell at a loss for words, said he knew he was likely to be voted off this week. He performed
Bonnie Raitt's "Something to Talk About" on Tuesday's country-themed show.
"When I saw the show on Tuesday I kind of had a feeling, and then I was in the dumps all day on Wednesday. I kind of knew," he said.
Malakar was asked if he was surprised by his staying power, especially with Cowell's increasingly harsh criticism. "I was just focusing on trying to get past each week," he replied.
He respects Cowell as "an amazing person" and learned more from him than anyone else on the show, the teenager said.
Cowell returned the compliment in his own way Thursday on "The Top of Form Oprah Winfrey Show."
"I miss him, probably in the same way as I would miss now my favorite horror movie," he said. "I don't mean that nastily, because I like horror movies. But there's a kind of like, 'I hate it, I love it.' And that's how I felt about Sanjaya."
He was a "very sweet guy, quite entertaining, but a horrible singer," Cowell said.
Malakar, who left high school early and earned his diploma through testing (the General Education Development, or GED, exam), said "American Idol" became his "junior and senior year."
Tongue-in-cheek support from the Web site votefortheworst.com and Howard Stern wasn't responsible for his staying power, Malakar said; he credits his fans.
Was he going for broke with his flashy onstage appearance?
"My philosophy was to stay true to myself and just try to put my personality out there," he said.
It's an approach he said he intends to stick with.
"My main thing that I'm going to look for when I choose endorsements and stuff like that is something I really feel strongly about, and I'm not going to do something just for money," Malakar said.
"It's not about money, it's about having an image and really putting your true self out there.

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Tuesday, April 24, 2007

Tribeca Film Festival 2007 Preview


Perhaps because it was conceived in the wake of tragedy, the Tribeca Film Festival, now in its sixth year, presents itself with a more overt and insistent air of celebration than many other film festivals worldwide (and boy, are there plenty of them). New York City is well known as a movie town, and Tribeca is the first film festival that I know of that was co-conceived and co-founded by not just a movie star but a bona-fide cinematic icon. Robert De Niro, a longtime resident of Manhattan's downtown Tribeca neighborhood, came up with the fest with producing partner Jane Rosenthal in the wake of the 9/11/01 terrorist attacks on New York. But for its first few years, the fest's celebratory angle seemed more a matter of civic, rather than cinematic, pride. Which, given the circumstances, was entirely understandable, and all for the good. After all, one of De Niro's stated reasons for creating the fest was to bring an economic boost to a downtown facing potential economic impoverishment as a result of the 9/11 catastrophe.
Hence, Tribeca used its inborn Hollywood clout to get the big guns involved, figuring that premiering humungoid tentpole event movies for the fest would be a good way to bring in the paying customers and, even more important today, the corporate sponsorships that pump money into both the festival itself but the city in which it's held. The strategy worked. The Tribeca Film Festival became one of the world's best known such events almost as soon as it was announced, which put it in the awkward position of being famous before it had even established an identity.
A few years in, the identity it seemed to be establishing was one that made skeptics — at first hesitant to criticize the festival for obvious reasons — raise their voices to a modest peep. But those voices were drowned out by media outlets that got a kick out of what they considered Tribeca's anti-snob appeal. In a Sunday New York Times Arts and Leisure piece on the festival in 2004, writer Rebecca Traister, effortlessly expressing the glib philistinism that some New York media types seem to believe is the hallmark of true cosmopolitan sophistication, practically cooed in pleasure recounting the tale of festival honchos juggling the schedule of a particular screening so it would not conflict with the series finale of Friends. Traister went on to express breathless delight that one of Tribeca's offerings that year would be a feature starring The Olsen Twins.

The problem is that while glib philistines might get off on the tweaking of hardcore movie lovers, it's the latter that will wind up making the biggest and potentially most loyal part of a film festival audience. And in the years since 2004, Tribeca has been cannily paring down its blockbuster mentality and ramping up its cinephile appeal. The strategy seems to be creating an event mentality around one or two carefully chosen pictures. Last year it was the Tom Cruise actioner Mission: Impossible III that bore the burden of several days worth of hype before landing at Tribeca; United 93 took on the mantle of the more serious-minded event movie at the festival, which was entirely apt given its subject matter. This year, rather ingeniously, Spider-Man week, which culminates with the U.S. premiere of Spider-Man 3, takes Tribeca out of Manhattan and into Queens — home of much New York movie history (e.g., the storied Kaufman Astoria studios) not to mention the home borough of Spider-Man's alter-ego, Peter Parker.
Such events generate enough glitz to give an aura to the entire festival, which has an eclectic roster that encompasses many stripes of New-York-centric filmmaking (including a work by underground pioneer Ken Jacobs) as well as a healthy international inclination-although veterans of Cannes, Venice, Toronto and Sundance will spy more than a few familiar titles in the catalog. But Tribeca is emerging as a more consumer-friendly than industry-centric kind of fest, which is all to the good. More and more, I see it attracting an emerging, as yet unidentified, type of festivalgoer: young New Yorkers with a healthy sense of adventure who aren't necessarily full-time film nuts, but who are eager to take full advantage of yet another New York cultural perk. And by the same token, Tribeca does feature enough putatively mainstream fare to take the pressure to be more populist off of the stalwart New York Film Festival, which is frequently attacked by those of Traister's ilk for, you know, showing too many movies that have subtitles and so on. So while Tribeca's identity is still not entirely fixed, maybe that's a good thing; in its current state, it's providing a lot to cheer on.

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Sen. Harry Reid Is Right About Iraq War

Last week Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., caused a ruckus in Washington by saying that there is no military solution to the Iraq War. That it's over and it's time to get out.
"I believe myself that the secretary of state, the secretary of defense — and you have to make your own decision as to what the president knows — that this war is lost, and that the surge is not accomplishing anything, as indicated by the extreme violence in Iraq yesterday," Reid said.
Republicans were quick to pounce, calling the Democratic leader unpatriotic and unsupportive of our troops, 3,300 of whom have died fighting this debacle.
What Reid said is 100 percent true, and he is not alone. For example, conservative columnist William F. Buckley is also on record saying that the war "has failed." It's no secret that Iraq has been torn apart and gutted as a result of the Unites States' March 2003 invasion. The country is mired in civil war, and the violence worsens with each passing day. Let's face it, Bush is not sending in an additional 20,000 troops because things are going well. Our soldiers are getting killed daily, the troops are forced to do longer tours of duty and our National Guardsmen are being sent back into battle before they even have a chance to unpack here at home. It's a disgrace.
Bush and his war-mongering cronies took it upon themselves to invade a sovereign nation under the guise of (a) retaliating against Sept. 11; (b) protecting America and Britain from WMD "mushroom clouds;" and then (c) building a stable democracy in the Middle East. As we now all know, there were no WMD in Iraq, there was no connection to bin Laden and al Qaeda and true, sustainable democracy is but a fantasy. Failure, failure, failure. And the insurgents have been empowered and emboldened by this failure, not weakened. And Bush's desperate "troop surge" is not going to make one bit of difference in changing Iraq's military and political landscape.
The Republicans don't like Reid and his assessment of the war. But too bad. This is not Reid's mess. This military disaster belongs 100 percent to Bush and the Republican party. This is their war. If they don't like it being called a failure, or that it is "lost," then they should demonstrate its successes and spare us the incessant partisan rhetoric. Stop regurgitating all this BS about progress and success and show it to us.

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Jessica Alba Is The New Face for Revlon



Jessica Alba is the latest Hollywood beauty to be added to Revlon's roster of glamorous and sexy ladies. Revlon announced on Friday that the curvy star will join the exclusive group of famous faces which include Academy Award Winning actress Halle Berry, Eva Mendes, and Sheryl Crow.


The "Fantastic Four" star will be featured in a global advertising campaign for the New Revlon 3D Extreme Mascara - this means Jessica Alba fans will get to see the stunning beauty in television commercials, magazines, and posters in stores. Keep a look out for the first commercial which will air in the U.S in July 2007.
Alba will also be participating in the annual Revlon Run/Walk for breast cancer in May and is also scheduled to be involved with other breast cancer initiatives with Revlon.
The new 3D Extreme Mascara gives lashes extreme fullness, curl, and length; and the product also has intensified color pigments for a dark, lush look, as well as a unique "Bold Impact" brush that is tapered to lift and separate every lash. The price for fuller, more defined lashes - $11.95.

Be on the look out for both the 3D Extreme mascara and Jessica Alba this summer - the mascara will be available in July at drugstores and mass retailers nationwide, and you can watch Jessica on the silver screen as the invisible girl in "Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer," which premieres in June.

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David Halberstam, Author, Pulitzer Winner, Killed

David Halberstam, a Pulitzer Prize- winning reporter who covered the Vietnam War and the U.S. civil rights movement and then wrote a series of best-selling books, died today in a car crash in California. He was 73.
Halberstam died this morning in a collision in Menlo Park, California, south of San Francisco, San Mateo County coroner spokeswoman Michelle Ripe said in a phone interview.
Halberstam won the Pulitzer in 1964 for his coverage of the Vietnam War for the New York Times. Writing from the paper's Saigon bureau, he filed stories that contradicted the official U.S. government stance that the war was being won.
``Insofar as journalists do have an ability to change the course of governments and history, I think David was right up there,'' Orville Schell, dean of the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California, Berkeley, said in an interview. ``He is one of those figures who was able to use history and literature to good effect so that he was able to incorporate his views without seeming prejudiced.''
After leaving the New York Times, Halberstam wrote at least 19 books over four decades, beginning with ``The Making of a Quagmire'' about the Vietnam War. His breakthrough book was ``The Best and the Brightest,'' a profile of the Ivy League overachievers who advised the Kennedy and Johnson administrations and were architects of the unsuccessful U.S. policy in Vietnam.
`Wrote About Anything'
``His work applied to political figures, media people and even sports figures, and that's a remarkable thing,'' said Frank McCulloch, 87, a retired newspaper and magazine editor who was in Saigon as Time bureau chief in 1963 and became a friend of Halberstam. ``He wrote about anything that interested him.''
In ``The Powers That Be,'' (1979), Halberstam told the story of four U.S. media dynasties and the families that built them: William Paley and CBS, the Grahams and the Washington Post, the Chandlers and the Los Angeles Times and Henry Luce and Time Inc.
``He became an expert on what he wrote about, and he was able to do this across a surprisingly wide spectrum of subjects,'' said Ben Bagdikian, a former assistant managing editor at the Washington Post and a Halberstam friend for more than 40 years. ``His trademark was to write with clarity, readability and authority on a wide spectrum of subjects.''
Born on April 10, 1934, in New York to a surgeon and teacher, Halberstam moved around frequently as a child, according to the Encyclopedia of World Biography. He attended high school in Yonkers, New York.
Harvard Graduate
Halberstam graduated from Harvard University in 1955 with a concentration in history and was editor of the Crimson, the school newspaper. He finished at the bottom half of his class, he said in an interview with the student newspaper two years ago.
Seymour Hersh, a writer at New Yorker magazine who also won a Pulitzer for Vietnam coverage, knew Halberstam for 38 years. He said Halberstam helped him name his book about Henry Kissinger.
``David had read a couple chapters in advance and called me up,'' Hersh recalled in a phone interview today. ``He said, I have the perfect title for you: `The Price of Power.' That was the name we used on the book. David was just one of those guys.''
Halberstam's work wasn't confined to the worlds of government and politics. He wrote about baseball in ``The Teammates: A Portrait of a Friendship'' and ``Summer of '49,'' and he profiled football coach Bill Belichick in ``The Education of a Coach.''
`The Reckoning'
``The Reckoning,'' published in 1986, chronicled the rise of Nissan Motor and the Japanese auto industry and the struggles of U.S. companies in a market they no longer dominated.
Halberstam died in a three-car collision this morning, Nicole Acker, a spokeswoman for Menlo Park police, said in an interview. Acker said Halberstam was in the passenger seat of a car that was sideswiped.
New York Times Publisher Arthur Sulzberger said ``the world has lost one of the greatest journalists. Our heartfelt condolences go out to his family,'' he said in a statement released through company spokeswoman Catherine Mathis.
``He was an individual of great charm,'' Bagdikian said. ``The impact of his passing will be very great, not just among journalists but among people in public life.''

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High hopes always ended in despair

Like Russia itself, Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin was complex and enigmatic -- an unpredictable riddle of a politician.
The country's first freely elected leader in 1,000 years overthrew Communism and supervised the destruction of the Soviet Union. He established peaceful relations with the West and transformed Russia by introducing private property, free-market economics and new political and social freedoms.
But the hulking bear of a man who won the adulation of Russians by attacking communist privilege also left a legacy of shattered hopes and half-fulfilled economic reforms that nearly bankrupted the country and subjected its once-egalitarian society to searing social, economic and ethnic divisions.
History will always remember Mr. Yeltsin for that day in August, 1991, when he clambered atop a tank in Moscow and stared down a hard-line Communist coup.
Two years later, the impulsive "hero of democracy" shelled a mutinous parliament into submission.
In 1994, he launched a war in Chechnya that still haunts Russia and has killed more Russians than at any time since Stalin's purges.
When he retired, six months early, on New Year's Eve, 1999, Mr. Yeltsin did not turn power over to a democrat dedicated to deepening and strengthening his reforms. He tapped a veteran of the old Soviet security apparatus who steadily reversed many of Russia's democratic gains and fostered a new authoritarianism.
Throughout his tumultuous career, Mr. Yeltsin often appeared to be a peasant who acted like a czar.
His drunkenness and ill health frequently left the nation leaderless at critical moments.
His erratic behaviour -- whether pinching a female secretary's bottom during a diplomatic reception or threatening the West with an unsteady hand on Russia's nuclear trigger -- seemed to mirror his country's suddenly diminished superpower status.
Throughout his career, Mr. Yeltsin shrugged off rumours of heavy drinking, though he frequently needed physical support when he appeared in public and often slurred his speeches.
On a visit to Italy to meet the Pope, he delivered a formal toast at a banquet in which he leeringly pledged his "boundless love for Italian women."
And after a well-lubricated tour of the United States, he was unable to leave his plane to receive an official welcome from the Irish prime minister during a stopover.
Mr. Yeltsin was perplexing and contradictory. He always held out the hope of change and he almost always disappointed.
A sworn enemy of old Soviet-era politicians, he gradually alienated other significant sectors of Russia's political spectrum.
The former provincial Communist leader had lost faith in socialism, but introduced reforms that raped the economy, triggering hyperinflation, soaring unemployment and a collapse of industrial output.
He generously lined the pockets of supporters and close aides and created a class of privileged oligarchs who plundered Russia's resources.
Mikhail Gorbachev, the Soviet leader who first elevated Mr. Yeltsin to public prominence in 1985 by bringing him to Moscow to reform the party's hierarchy, said yesterday he felt Mr. Yeltsin "had a tragic destiny."
"He was responsible for great deeds to the benefit of the country -- and serious mistakes," he told the Interfax news agency.
An advocate of rapid reform whose populist touch outshone Mr. Gorbachev's own policies of perestroika and glasnost, Mr. Yeltsin frequently clashed with his boss and publicly criticized his policies.
When they finally fell out, Mr. Yeltsin was ousted from the party leadership in 1987 and expelled from the politburo in 1988.
He quit the Communist party in 1990, after being elected speaker of the Supreme Soviet of the Russian republic in the old Soviet Union.
Carefully cultivating his image as a reformer who could rally ordinary people, he became the first elected president of the Russian Federation on June 12, 1991.
Two months later, he found himself dealing with the coup attempt.
Afterward, he banned the Communist party, confiscated its property and turned his leadership of Russia's reform movement into a democratic revolution in which he joined the leaders of Ukraine and Belarus in creating the Commonwealth of Independent States.
In the chaotic transition that followed, his personal failings as a leader aggravated Russia's political and economic turmoil.
He sought to give the country a dose of "shock therapy" but too often he left the details to advisors.
As a result, Russia endured its worst economic crisis in decades. Tens of thousands of people saw their life savings disappear, dozens of the country's banks collapsed, corruption and crime ran rampant, and neo-fascist groups surged in popularity.
In the fall of 1998, the economic collapse was complete when Moscow defaulted on billions of dollars of debt.
By allowing his presidency to be hijacked by corrupt "Kremlin insiders," Mr. Yeltsin createdideal conditions for Vladimir Putin's new authoritarianism.
But whenhe unexpectedly resigned tobe granted an immediate amnesty by Mr. Putin from all possible prosecution, he knew he had failed.
In his final television address to the Russian people, he pleaded for understanding.
"I ask for forgiveness for not justifying some hopes of those people who believed that at one stroke, one spurt, we could leap from the gray, stagnant, totalitarian past into the light, rich, civilized future," Mr. Yeltsin said. "I myself believed in this, that we could overcome everything in one spurt."

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Aishwarya Rai Pumps Up the Brand Bachchan Value

With the gorgeous Aishwarya Rai entering the Bachchan family-fold, the “Bachchan brand” value has now crossed the above Rs 700 crore mark.Financial analysts say and trade experts, the Bachchan brand value is worth Rs 700 crore as Bollywood mega superstar Amitabh Bachchan and his son Abhishek Bachchan are brand ambassadors for various products.
Ash, becoming a part of the family now, could add to that value by several crores.Among the actors who endorse products, Bachchan, Aamir Khan and Shah Rukh Khan are the highest paid stars who charge between Rs 4-5 crore for a single brand.Ash, who was chosen by Time magazine’s Asia edition as one of Asia’s ‘100 most influential people’, is the brand ambassador for products like L’Oreal, Nakshatra Diamonds and Lux, to name a few.Bachchan endorses products such as Reid & Taylor, ICICI Bank, Nerolac, Dabur India, Pepsi, Parker pens and Cadbury chocolates. Abhishek endorses Ford Fiesta, Omega, Radio Big 92.7 FM, Motorola, LG Home Appliances, and American Express, among others.Bachchan charges upto Rs 5 crore per ad, followed by Ash with Rs 3 crore per ad while Abhishek is not far behind. Abhishek’s brand value has recently gone up after delivering hits like Guru and Bunty Aur Babli.The three stars have their own clientele and cashing in on the marriage, L’Oreal has introduced a limited edition lipstick shade under its colour riche range, tender beige for their brand ambassador Ash. “This is the first time we have done something like this. We have never done this before,” says a L’Oreal spokesperson. The lipstick will be launched later across the country.The more the Bachchans keep the marriage details a secret, the more people are going crazy. Brands are falling over each other to get the elusive Bachchans and their new bahu together.Some of the other cricketers/ filmstars who have their own successful brands include Kajol and Ajay Devgan , M S Dhoni, Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid and Akshay Kumar to name a few.The Bachchans have a huge fan following and whatever they do, fans emulate them. The products endorsed by them will be purchased by fans, adman Prahlad Kakkar said.According to the trend today, filmstar marriages not only have entertainment value but are profitable business ventures worth several crores. The case in point being the recent Elizabeth Hurley - Arun Nayar wedding held in Jaipur, the rights of which were sold to Hello! magazine for one million pounds.But amidst all this the Bachchans are the main beneficiaries who will be laughing all the way to the bank.

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Monday, April 23, 2007

NASA releases 3-D views of sun

Scientists on Monday unveiled some of the first 3-D images of the violent electrical storms that rage within the sun’s atmosphere.
In the new images, the electrified loops and charged particles that blow from the sun’s surface seem to come to life. Besides the oohs and aahs, the results will help scientists track powerful solar eruptions and predict how they could affect Earth, similar to hurricane-tracking.
The pictures were snapped with two nearly identical observatories that orbit the sun in tandem. Called STEREO (Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory), the spacecraft were launched in October 2006, but it wasn’t until the end of March that the two observatories were separated by enough distance to allow them to generate the 3-D pictures. The technique is similar to how the offset between your eyes provides you with depth perception.
Solar storm trackersIn particular, the observatories have their eyes on coronal mass ejections, which are violent eruptions that carry massive amounts of electrically charged gas called plasma from the sun’s atmosphere. Once unleashed, these plasma clouds race away from the sun at up to a million miles per hour.
Among the new images is one showing a plasma cloud lifting off the solar surface.
“Coronal mass ejections you might think of as analogous to hurricanes here on Earth,” said STEREO project scientist Michael Kaiser of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, in Greenbelt, Md. Meteorologists are now able to predict with much accuracy which storms on Earth will turn into hurricanes and when and where they could make landfall.
“We are trying to do the same thing with these coronal mass ejections,” Kaiser said.
The coronal mass ejections headed toward Earth are particularly tricky to track because the spacecraft “watching” them sit directly in front of the sun.
“It’s almost like somebody blowing a smoke ring at you from across the room and trying to predict how fast it’s moving,” Kaiser told Space.com. “What you need is somebody on either side of the room looking at that same smoke ring and they can triangulate on it.”
That’s what STEREO’s two observatories do.
Electric weather The results could make space weather easier to predict.
For instance, as a coronal mass ejection plows through the solar system, it slams into the slower solar wind (a thin stream of plasma constantly blowing from the sun). The collision with the solar wind generates a shock that accelerates electrically charged particles in the solar wind, causing radiation storms that can disrupt sensitive electronics on satellites and cause cancer in unshielded astronauts.
“All the spacecraft up there have these micro-circuits in them, and they are very susceptible to small changes in voltage and current,” Kaiser said. “When a big electrical storm from the sun hits, you can easily get some upset spacecraft put out of commission.”
"Previous imagery did not show the front of a solar disturbance as it traveled toward Earth, so we had to make estimates of when the storm would arrive,” said one of STEREO’s principal investigators Russell Howard of the Naval Research Laboratory. “These estimates were uncertain by a day or so. With STEREO, we can track the front from the sun all the way to Earth, and forecast its arrival within a couple hours."
If scientists could figure out the when and where of solar electrical zaps, engineers could take preventive actions such as putting a spacecraft in a low power mode until storms pass.

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Luds' Look: Positive Signs Brought to Game Seven

Former Stars defenseman Craig Ludwig is a veteran of 17 NHL seasons and has played in 177 career playoff games, winning two Stanley Cups. Each morning after a Stars playoff game, Luds will post here on DallasStars.com to take you inside the game. He will share some of what he is seeing in the match-up that is going right, what is going wrong, and some of the "games inside the game" that will play big roles in the outcome of each contest and eventually the series.
It's hard not to think anything good right now. I don't think that any of the Stars have many doubts in their minds but I think Vancouver has a lot that do. And I think you have to give them reasons to let that doubt roll by playing the same way.
The Stars were very aggressive in Game Six and it showed from the drop of the puck. Modano created a chance right away when he dropped a puck to Sydor right at the top of the slot, who let it rip. That is something we haven't seen much, especially from the opening of the game. That made a statement to me; the Stars were out to win the game and were not content to sit back: "If we lose it, it's going to be on our own terms."
Marty Turco and Roberto Luongo are in a different world right now. I know that Marty doesn't mind his team being aggressive and trying to get some goals for him. We had more intent last night. Our good players stepped up last night and Modano led the way. He can't change; he has to be that same guy in Game Seven. Modano stepped into the fight and he needs to understand that he is a huge part of the team's success when he plays that way.
When your team sees Modano and other guys like Ribeiro step out of character a little bit and pay the price, it pulls everybody along. The aggression continued throughout the game, as the Stars were not content to stand on a 1-0 lead, and that was a good sign too.
This series is so important with that first goal. You have to be aggressive but you have to be smart about it. The way Marty is playing you can take a few more higher-risk chances, but again, it's Game Seven and every mistake will be magnified. But from the drop of the puck on Monday, the Stars need to show Vancouver that they want the game more. Give them the reason to say, "Here we go again."
Dallas was in control of the contest from the beginning of the game, and they do not want to change that. The first 5 or 10 minutes of the game will be important and they will have to let that roar of the building subside and hopefully go away. They'll be all fired up, that's for sure. It's another reason to be very smart about your aggressiveness. Both teams will have a lot of energy.
The last thing you want to do is take a dumb penalty or jump into a play when it's the wrong time and they turn that into the first goal.
But there's really not a lot to change for the Stars. Dallas came out and was hitting Vancouver last night and that is key again. The entire team jumped on board and that's what the playoffs are all about. Everyone on the team needs to contribute and it is contagious. And we've seen it more and more in each game.
Another thing that has gotten lost in this entire series is how well the guys are playing in front of Marty. As good as Marty has been, the defense has been shutting down Vancouver and shutting down the right guys. Dallas has been wearing them down.
The Stars are going to have to be willing to take a punch in the head or take a slash to the ankle and be able to bite their lip and not take a dumb retaliatory penalty. Dallas has done a really good job on their power play but you can't give them a ton of chances with the man-advantage. They are due and you don't want to mess with that.
I expect more of the same in Game Seven -- a low-scoring game that may be 1-0 or 2-1 at the end. Two goals is a huge number in this series because the goalies don't give you anything. That's why the first goal is huge because it might be another hour and half before the next scoring chance comes. And it has to be the right players getting those chances too. That's what Vancouver's coach means when he talks about his veterans getting into the game. It's like the difference between Brett Hull getting a scoring chance and Craig Ludwig getting a scoring chance. Hullie might score on 1-of-5 chances on these goalies while I would not have much of a chance.
I feel good about Dallas in Game Seven, but they have to continue to play their game. Vancouver is at home and that's why you want to have the higher seed -- so that Game Seven is in your building. But on the flip side, you don't want to be down in Game Seven at home where you can start pressing, and that's why the first goal is so important.
The Stars have played like they are not afraid to lose in the last two games and they have confidence in Vancouver. It's right there for them. But they have to continue focusing on the next shift and let everything fall into place.

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El Cantante (2007)


Biopic of Hector Lavoe, one of the biggest Spanish-language singers in the 1970s, but personal tragedy and a heroin addiction left him penniless and dying from complications from AIDS.







El Cantante is the dramatic-biography of Puerto Rican salsa pioneer Hector Lavoe.


The film follows Lavoe’s (Anthony) passionate relationship with Puchi (Lopez) and his skyrocket to international fame. But even when he has it all, Lavoe is unable to escape the allure of drugs and his personal pain.

Also Known As:
The Singer
Untitled (Hector Lavoe/Nuyorican Project)
Production Status:
In Production/Awaiting Release
Genres:
Drama, Musical/Performing Arts and Biopic
Running Time:
1 hr. 56 min.
Release Date:
August 1st, 2007 (limited)
MPAA Rating:
R for drug use, pervasive language and some sexuality.
Distributors:
Picturehouse
Production Co.:
R-Caro Productions, Nuyorican Productions
Financiers:
Union Square Works
Filming Locations:
Puerto Rico
New York, New York, USA
New York City , New York, USA
Produced in:
United States

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French voters propel Segolene Royal, Nicolas Sarkozy to presidential runoff

Conservative Nicolas Sarkozy holds an advantage over his Socialist rival Segolene Royal after the two advanced to the second round of France's presidential election, narrowing the vote to a choice between the tough-talking former interior minister or the first woman with a chance of becoming the country's leader.
The race is now on for voters in the middle ground and others who deserted the left and right in favour of farmer's son and legislator Francois Bayrou, who placed third on Sunday in one of the big surprises of the campaign.
Both Sarkozy and Royal planned rallies Monday night.
It won't be a "walk in the park" for Sarkozy even though he is in a strong position heading into the runoff, said Bruno Cautres, researcher at the prestigious Institute for Political Sciences.
With nearly all votes counted, Sarkozy had 31.1 per cent, followed by Royal with 25.8 per cent and Bayrou with 18.5 per cent. Turnout was 84.6 per cent - the highest in more than 40 years and just shy of the record set in 1965.
Royal is the first woman to get this close to the helm of this major European economic, military and diplomatic power. Sarkozy would be likely to push his anxious nation toward painful change.
Either way, France will get its first president with no memory of Second World War to replace the 74-year-old Jacques Chirac, who is stepping down after 12 years.
Sunday's first round of voting shut out 10 other hopefuls, from Trotskyists to far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen. Le Pen had hoped to repeat his shockingly strong showing of 2002 but instead finished a weak fourth with 10.5 per cent.
Both Sarkozy, a Hungarian immigrant's son, and Royal, a military officer's daughter who beat Socialist heavyweights to win her party's nomination, are in their 50s and have travelled long, arduous roads to get to this point.
The winner's task will be tough: France is a troubled country, still haunted by the riots by young blacks and Arabs in poor neighbourhoods in 2005.
Decades of stubbornly high unemployment, increasing competition from economies like China's, and a sense that France is losing influence in the world made this a passionate campaign. Both Royal and Sarkozy have promised to get France back on its feet - but offer starkly different paths for doing that.
Sarkozy would relax labour laws and cut taxes to invigorate the sluggish economy, while Royal would hike government spending and preserve the country's generous worker protections.
Royal, too, champions change but says it must not be brutal.
"I extend my hand to all those women and men who think, as I do, that it is not only possible but urgent to abandon a system that no longer works," she said.
The runoff offers "a clear choice between two very different paths," she said.
Outside Socialist Party headquarters in Paris, her supporters chanted "We're going to win!"
Sarkozy told cheering supporters Sunday night that by choosing him and Royal, voters "clearly marked their wish to go to the very end of the debate between two ideas of the nation, two programs for society, two value systems, two concepts of politics."
Despite his lead, the former interior minister faces a powerful "Anything But Sarkozy" push by those who call him too arrogant and explosive to run a nuclear-armed country. He once called young delinquents "scum," a remark that outraged the residents of poor neighbourhoods and has dogged him politically.
Royal, a legislator and feminist who says she makes political decisions based on what she would do for her children, shot to popularity by promising to run France differently. But she has stumbled on foreign policy. In one gaffe, she praised the Chinese during a trip to Beijing for their swift justice system.
Many voters question whether she is "presidential" enough to run France.
Sarkozy should be able to count on votes from the far right, whose champion Le Pen suffered his second-worst showing in five presidential elections.
Royal's score was the highest for a Socialist since Mitterrand in 1988. But closing the gap with Sarkozy could be a struggle in round two. Candidates to her left together scored about 11 per cent. They immediately swung behind her after their elimination, but their votes alone will not be enough to put Royal in power.
For that, she needs Bayrou. Sarkozy and Royal scoffed at Bayrou as unrealistic throughout the monthslong campaign, saying he would be incapable of forming a government with ministers on the left and right, or gain a parliamentary majority. Now his supporters hold the key to victory.
"French politics has changed as of tonight and will never again be the same ...," Bayrou said Sunday night after results were announced.
With results for the nearly one million French voters registered abroad still trickling in early Monday, turnout fell just short of the record of 84.8 per cent for a first round, set in 1965. That year, modern France held its first direct presidential election, with Second World War Gen. Charles de Gaulle and Socialist Francois Mitterrand reaching the runoff that de Gaulle went on to win.

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Iran warns women over dress

Iran has issued more than a thousand warnings and arrested dozens in a new drive aimed at forcing women whose dress is deemed inappropriate to adhere to Islamic dress rules, officials said Sunday.
The nationwide drive -- an annual pre-summer crackdown given greater prominence this year -- is aimed primarily at women whose coats are seen as too tight, trousers excessively short or hejabs (headscarves) overly loose.
It foresees handing out warnings and guidance to women found to have infringed its dress code in public. Those who show resistance to change can be arrested and then be the subject of legal proceedings.
"Since the plan started at 10:00 am on Saturday, 1,347 women have been warned and given Islamic guidance," the head of information at Tehran city's police force, Mehdi Ahmadi, told AFP.
"There were 170 arrests. Of these, 58 were released after making a written commitment and rectifying their appearance. The cases of the rest, who already had a record, were handed over to the judiciary," he said.

Iranian newspapers printed pictures of women in tight and colourful clothing being given warnings on Tehran's streets by female police officers dressed in chadors as the crackdown got underway on Saturday.
Twenty shops selling inappropriate clothing were also closed down, Ahmadi said.
The programme was aimed at "improving the security of society with an approach of moral security," he added.
"Its duration depends on when society feels that there are no longer signs of short trousers, tight mantos (coats), tight clothing and very skimpy hejabs."
The authorities have argued the "bad hejab" drive is aimed at encouraging women to dress in line with Islamic dress code and it appeared the emphasis is more on handing out warnings than detaining offenders.

Conservatives have applauded the new crackdown as necessary to preserve public morals as women in Tehran increasingly push the boundaries over what is permissible to wear in public.
When the conservative Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was elected president in June 2005 there were expectations that the authorities would clamp down firmly on women's dress in public.
However the situation has not changed and past attempts to bring women into line have petered out after a few weeks.
An editorial in the hardline daily Kayhan said that police were right to ignore the wishes of those who favoured a more softly-softly approach.
"Do not worry, the people support you (the police). The man who sees the robbers of his family's chastity laughing in his face, the family that despairs over the drug addiction of their child... they are with you," it said.
Women in Iran are obliged by law to wear the hejab and a full length overcoat that covers all bodily contours. Visiting foreigners and religious minorities are not exempted.
Mohammad Taghi Rahbar, a member of the culture committee of the Iranian parliament, was quoted by the Etemad newspaper as saying a harder line towards female dress was long overdue.
"The current situation is shameful for an Islamic government. A man who sees these models on the streets will pay no attention to his wife at home, destroying the foundation of the family," he warned.
The Tehran police spokesman warned that men were not exempt from the crackdown.
Ahmadi said officers would also target men sporting clothes deemed too tight or hairstyles deemed too extravagant.

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Are James Blunt and Paris Hilton an item?

who is believed to be dating Desperate Housewives actor Josh Henderson - partied with the You're Beautiful singer at Los Angeles nightclub Teddy's.
The pair were joined by Paris' younger sister Nicky and her boyfriend David Katzenberg.
A source told the New York Post newspaper: "Paris and James danced and held hands. Then they started to make out."
However, Blunt's representative has denied the claims, saying: "This sounds like gossip to me!"
The British singer recently split from his model fiancee Petra Nemcova.
Paris, 26, is due in court on May 4 charged with violating the terms of her probation for a previous reckless driving charge by driving with a suspended licence.
If convicted she faces up to 90 days in jail.

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Sunday, April 22, 2007

Iggy Pop celebrates 60 by diving off stage

Iggy Pop marked his 60th birthday on Saturday just like any other respectable senior citizen would.The eerily athletic “Godfather of Punk” stripped down to a tight pair of blue jeans and dived off the stage into the arms of his adoring fans during a concert in San Francisco with his reunited band the Stooges.Towards the end of the 80-minute show, the crowd at the Warfield theater sang along as his bandmates struck up “Happy Birthday,” and Pop was surprised as balloons bearing his image dropped from the ceiling.
A fan also handed him a white T-shirt inscribed “Birthday Boy Iggy,” which the singer proudly displayed to his unimpressed bandmates.Pop, whose real name is Jim Osterberg, seemed thrilled by all the attention, but did not dwell too much on the special occasion. He muttered a few thanks along the way before resuming his usual routine: manic singing and dancing, spitting into the crowd, scampering onto the speakers and throwing his microphone stand around the stage.
During the song “No Fun,” he invited fans in the mosh pit to jump onto the stage, and generously shared his microphone with the motley troupe he termed the “Bay Area Dancers.”Pop no longer carves up his chest with a steak knife, rolls around in cut glass, smears himself in peanut butter, or follows a drug regimen that makes Keith Richards look like a choirboy. But the Michigan trailer-park kid otherwise outruns rockers one-third his age.
Pop is back on tour with the Stooges, the band with which he first made a splash in the late 1960s. Their enthusiastic garage rock, a dissonant distillation of Chicago blues and British Invasion rock, helped pave the way for punk rock bands like the Ramones and the Sex Pistols.The Stooges self-destructed in 1974 after releasing three albums whose influence was not reflected by their meager sales. Pop ended up penniless in the gutters of the Sunset Strip, and checked into a psychiatric hospital. He launched a comeback in 1977 with the help of David Bowie, with whom he co-wrote such tunes as “Lust for Life” and “China Girl.”
A prolific recording artist and touring act, he reunited with Stooges guitarist Ron Asheton and his brother, drummer Scott Asheton, in 2003. With California punk veteran Mike Watt subbing for late bass player Dave Alexander, they last month released their first album in 33 years, “The Weirdness.”After their North American tour ends on May 4 at the Beale Street Music Festival in Memphis, they will launch a brief summer tour of European festivals.

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Federer has no answer for Nadal on clay

Roger Federer seems no closer to figuring out how to beat Rafael Nadal on clay.
The top-ranked Swiss star lost his fifth straight match to Nadal on clay Sunday at the Monte Carlo Masters, 6-4, 6-4, and the second-ranked Spaniard extended his winning streak on the surface to 67 matches.
"I lost four times against Rafa," Federer said. "I'd rather have that than lose against four different guys."
Nadal won the title at Monte Carlo for the third straight year. The two-time defending French Open champion is 14-0 in clay-court finals, and 4-0 against Federer.
But despite his latest setback, the 10-time Grand Slam champion believes he's still on the right track to win the only major that eludes him.
Federer has four Wimbledon titles, and three at both the U.S. and Australian opens, but still needs the French Open to complete the sweep.
"I feel this match gave me some information," Federer said. "I'm absolutely in the mix with him on clay. I feel like I'm in good shape for the rest of clay-court season, and it's going to come down to the French Open to see who wins."
Nadal beat Federer on clay last year in the finals of the Monte Carlo Masters, the Rome Masters and the French Open. He also beat Federer in the 2005 Monte Carlo semifinals.
Only at the Rome Masters did Nadal have to save a match point against Federer on clay.
"Today's match was very close. For sure, it's a surprise to win in two sets against the No. 1," Nadal said. "I was confident because I was playing my best tennis this week."
Nadal is the first player to win three straight Monte Carlo titles since Ilie Nastase (1971-73), and only the fourth in the Open era to have won it three times. Bjorn Borg and Thomas Muster also did so were three-time winners.
Federer, who won his previous two meetings with Nadal on other surfaces, missed two chances to break Nadal in the eighth game of the first set. Nadal saved the first with a strong serve, and the second when Federer's forehand went wide.
"I should have used my chances when I had them early on," Federer said. "Unfortunately, it turned around with a few mistakes."
It was Federer's third loss of the season - with the other two coming against Guillermo Canas last month at Indian Wells and Key Biscayne.
Federer made 38 unforced errors - half on his forehand - and Nadal won on his second match point when Federer sent a backhand long.
"I will try again to beat him in Rome, Hamburg and here in Monte Carlo next year," Federer said.
Federer could not explain why his forehand - normally his most potent weapon - was well below its usual standard.
"It rarely happens to me," Federer said. "It's the best shot of my game."
After failing to convert those two early break points against Nadal, Federer trailed 40-0 in the ninth game. He saved one break point, but then a long forehand gave Nadal a 5-4 lead, and he served out the set.
Nadal broke Federer again in the third game of the second set, when Federer's defensive volley was too short and the Spaniard sprinted forward to pass him down the line.
"Let's not forget he's an excellent player on clay," Federer said. "He's born on this surface. It's his No. 1 surface, and still I come so close ... four finals in a row on clay. I feel like I'm in good shape."

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France votes to replace Chirac

FRANCE is voting in its most unpredictable presidential election in decades, with rightwinger Nicolas Sarkozy and socialist Segolene Royal favourites among a dozen contenders for next month's run-off ballot.

But opinion polls are showing millions still undecided despite months of frenzied campaigning, so both centrist candidate Francois Bayrou and far-right veteran Jean-Marie Le Pen are still hopeful of a second round spot on May 6.
"Anything can happen!" declared the front-page headline of Le Parisien, while the Journal du Dimanche said: "Incredible suspense for an historic vote."
Memories are vivid of the last presidential election in 2002, when the anti-immigrant Mr Le Pen shocked France and the world by qualifying for round two.
Mr Sarkozy, the son of a Hungarian immigrant, has pushed a right-wing program based on the themes of work and national identity but his tough talk sparked fears he would divide rather than unite the nation.
Ms Royal, an army officer's daughter with an almost permanent smile, has presented herself as a nurturing mother figure and has proposed a leftist economic program that would keep France's generous welfare system intact.
Mr Bayrou, a former Latin teacher, wants to end the left-right political divide by forming a national unity government.
All three come from a new generation of politicians, and in a campaign that has been as much about personalities as policies, all claimed to represent a break from a discredited past.
Whoever wins the presidency will have to deal with a huge public debt, stubbornly high unemployment and seething discontent in the high-immigration suburbs which in 2005 broke out into widespread rioting.
He or she will also need to soothe French angst about factories closing and shifting to China or India.
Around 44.5 million registered voters - an increase of 3.4 million on 2002 - were choosing a successor to Jacques Chirac, 74, who steps down next month after leading the country for 12 years.
In Argenteuil, one of the poor, high-immigration Paris suburbs where former interior minister Mr Sarkozy is a hate figure for many after making a speech denouncing "rabble" troublemakers, 40-year-old Samir said he had just voted for Ms Royal.
"Madame Royal will bring in more work, more liberty. Under Sarkozy people were pushed and pushed, they had no freedom," he said.
Some 65,000 polling booths opened at 8am local time (4pm AEST) and were due to close 12 hours later. Initial estimates of the result were expected the moment voting ends.
Only the two front-runners qualify for the second round.
For several months polls have consistently given a clear first round lead to Mr Sarkozy, the 52-year-old leader of the ruling Union for a Popular Movement (UMP), who on Sunday morning cast his vote along with his wife Cecilia at a polling station in a Paris suburb.
Ms Royal, 53, has been in second place followed by Mr Bayrou, 55, and the 78 year-old Mr Le Pen - but the gap separating them has varied widely, fuelling the speculation over who will join Mr Sarkozy in the run-off.
Ms Royal, a former environment minister who wants to be France's first woman president, would be under threat if large numbers of left-wing voters switch tactically to Mr Bayrou in order to keep out Sarkozy, analysts said. Polls suggest that Mr Bayrou has the best chance of beating Sarkozy in the run-off.
Also running in the election are three Trotskyites, a Communist, a Green and anti-capitalist campaigner Jose Bove. The other two are a hunters' rights candidate and the Catholic nationalist Philippe de Villiers.

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Desperate Housewives star is snapped with mystery brunette


After 15 months together, it's all over between Girls Aloud singer Nadine Coyle and Hollywood star Jess Metcalfe.
The Desperate Housewives gardener – who recently went into rehab to sort out 'acohol issues' – was snapped by paparazzi in LA holding hands with another girl.
Nadine, 21, says she's had enough and cheating definitely isn't allowed! 'It's over between me and Jesse,' she tells The Daily Mirror.
'I'm not the kind of girl to put up with nonsense like that. 'I'll meet the right person when the time is right. I'm disappointed but what can I do? 'There's no point hanging on when it gets to this stage.'
Jesse, 28 - who has admitted he used to be a serial love-cheat – was snapped with the mystery brunette while Nadine was thousands of miles away in Blighty, filming the new St Trinians movie with her bandmates.
Pals recently warned she'd be distraught if she ever found out Jesse has strayed. 'If she thinks he's been cheating on her with another girl, there will be all hell to pay,' a close friend told the Sun. 'She's a fiesty Irish girl who won't stand for it.'

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Motegi: Danica Patrick race report


Motorola driver Danica Patrick started fourth, but fought handling problems on Saturday and finished 11th in the Indy Japan 300 at Twin Ring Motegi in Motegi, Japan.
Patrick, who posted her best qualifying result Friday since September 2005, stayed in the top 10 throughout the first half of the 200-lap event while fighting an understeer condition on the #7 Motorola car. She cycled to as high as seventh in the closing stages of the event as fuel mileage became a factor, but had to come to the pit lane herself for fuel with a couple laps to go, dropping her to 11th in the final rundown.
Team 7-Eleven driver Tony Kanaan netted his first win of the 2007 season and moved to second in the series point standings. Dan Wheldon finished the race in second place followed by Canadian Club driver Dario Franchitti in third. Scott Dixon and Sam Hornish Jr. rounded out the top five.
Next up on the IndyCar Series schedule is the Kansas Lottery Indy 300 on Sunday, April 29.
Danica Patrick, #7 Motorola Dallara/Honda/Firestone:
"I had a fast car and it wasn't fast in the race. It just wasn't handling right. I had so much understeer and couldn't run with anybody. I was okay by myself. But, when you don't start from the pole, you have to pass people and I couldn't pass people. We just never seemed to get it right. The last stint seemed to be where we got it the best. Then we went into a fuel mileage race and we had to pit with a lap or two to go. Nothing really seemed to come together for us. It was a good weekend. Even at the end of the race, the Motorola car was never out of the top four in speed."
Kim Green, Race Strategist, #7 Motorola Dallara/Honda/Firestone:
"We gave Danica a pretty tough race car to drive and she did a very good job bringing it home. We had way too much understeer in the car for the track conditions. We made a lot of changes during the race and it put us into a difficult position to win the race. Towards the end of the race, we needed to make fuel mileage without stopping and it made us slow down. It was a really tough day, but I am proud that she brought the Motorola car home and I think we are getting better and better with every event. We were looking for a very good result today and just didn't have the car to get the job done."

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Controversial 'Jane Austen' portrait fails to sell at auction

A controversial portrait offered for sale as the only existing painting of English author Jane Austen failed to find a buyer when it went up for auction in New York on Thursday.
The painting, which depicts a young woman in a full-length white dress holding a green parasol, failed to reach its reserve price, Christie's auction house said. It had been expected to fetch between 400,000 and 800,000 dollars. The so-called Rice Portrait, described by Christie's as one of the world's most intriguing literary portraits, was believed to have been painted by British painter Ozias Humphry and is owned by Austen's direct descendants. The controversy over the portrait goes back to the 1940s, when leading Austen scholar R.W. Chapman said that the fashions in the picture dated from 1805 or later, and not from the late 1780s, when it was supposedly painted.
Another debate has focused on the supplier's stamp on the reverse of the original canvas. Detractors say the merchant's mark does not fit with the period, while Christie's disputed both arguments.
"On the basis of its provenance, authorship and acceptance from within her own family from as early as 1817 (the year of Austen's death), the Rice Portrait has substantial and credible claim to be accepted as the only portrait painted in oils by a professional artist of Jane Austen," it said.Austen, who is considered one of England's most accomplished writers, is best known for novels including Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, Emma and Persuasion.

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Saturday, April 21, 2007

The pop princess received a public tongue lashing from her father

Britney Spears has been to rehab. Now it looks like she may be headed for family therapy.
The pop princess received a public tongue lashing from her father, Jamie Spears, on Friday in the form of an email sent to the New York Post calling her out for bad behavior.
The Spears patriarch spoke up in defense of Larry Rudolph, his daughter's manager, whom, according to the Post, she fired last week after relations between the two grew increasingly strained. (However, sources tell E! News and E! Online columnist Bruce Bibby that Spears and Rudolph still have a valid contract.)
Rudolph was allegedly the force behind ushering the "Oops" singer into Malibu's Promises treatment center, thereby incurring much of Spears' wrath over what she considered to be an unnecessary step. In a recent on-camera interview with x17online.com, Spears, 25, alluded to her irritation at Rudolph and her stint in rehab.
"My management totally knew what they were doing when they sent me to rehab," she said in a voice dripping with sarcasm, while giving a double thumbs up. "They were so right."
The sarcastic attitude was not appreciated by her father, who countered with his belief that Rudolph's intervention may have saved her life at a time when she was in a hard-partying, non-panties-wearing downward spiral.
"When Larry Rudolph talked Britney into going into rehab, he was doing what her mother, father and team of professionals with over 100 years of experience knew needed to be done," Jamie Spears wrote in his email to the Post. "She was out of control. Larry was the one chosen by the team to roll up his sleeves and deliver the message, to help save her life.
"The Spears family would like to publicly apologize to Larry for our daughter's statements about him over the past few weeks. Unfortunately, she blames him and her family for where she is at today with her kids and career. Larry has always been there for Britney. For this, we will forever be grateful to him."
The younger Spears was quick to talk back, dismissing her father's words as the product of a shaky paternal bond.
"I am praying for my father. We have never had a good relationship," she told the Post through her rep. "It's sad that all the men that have been in my life do not know how to accept a real woman's love. I am concentrating on my work and my life right now."
Since exiting Promises last month, the singer has reportedly been working hard to get her body back in shape by taking frequent dance classes and watching what she eats.
Published reports have suggested that Spears' slimdown efforts may have been aided by LipoDissolve injections—fat-melting shots administered over a 24-week period at $1,500 a pop. The singer was said to have visited Las Vegas' Advanced Lipo Dissolve Center recently seeking the nonsurgical procedure.
Meanwhile, according to Star magazine, Spears still plans to do some serious nip-and-tucking in the coming months. The tabloid reported that the mother-of-two will spend $8,000 on a breast lift, $12,000 on a lower-body lift, $16,000 on liposuction for her back, stomach, and love handles and $6,000 on brachioplasty to tighten up her upper arms.
In all, Spears was said to be shelling out somewhere in the neighborhood of $130,000 in the quest to get her body back to pre-baby form.
No confirmation from the singer's publicist, but if true, it's still less than it reportedly cost her to get rid of Kevin Federline.

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'Disturbia' is more gripping than you'd expect

After his father's death, Kale becomes sullen, withdrawn, and troubled -- so much so that he finds himself under a court-ordered sentence of house arrest. His mother, Julie, works night and day to support herself and her son, only to be met with indifference and lethargy. The walls of his house begin to close in on Kale. He becomes a voyeur as his interests turn outside the windows of his suburban home towards those of his neighbors, one of which Kale begins to suspect is a serial killer. But, are his suspicions merely the product of cabin fever and his overactive imagination?
The trailers make "Disturbia" look like an eye-rollingly awful Generation Y ripoff of "Rear Window." And, yeah, the new movie's plot is definitely, um, borrowed (and uncredited). But it's directed and acted with enough intelligence and texture to largely compensate for its lack of originality.
Shia LaBeouf plays teenager Kale, whom we meet on an idyllic fishing trip — a trip that ends with a sucker-punch calamity that jolts the story forward a year.
Formerly well-adjusted, Kale has changed into a sullen, guilt-stricken ghost of himself. He barely pays attention in school. Worse, he's developed a trigger temper that lands him in front of juvie court officials, who sentence him to a summer of electric-anklet house arrest. (It's the 21st century equivalent of the broken leg that kept James Stewart stuck at home spying on his neighbors in "Rear Window.")
It's a big, beautiful house, shared with his long-suffering mom (the good, somewhat underused Carrie-Anne Moss). But Kale is soon bored out of his skull watching "Cheaters" on TV or gluing Twinkies into a pointless sculpture. That is, until he takes interest in two specific neighbors — Mr. Turner (David Morse), who lives alone in a big house and mows his lawn obsessively, and Ashley (Sarah Roemer), the blond hottie who's just moved next door with her family.
Kale's attraction to Ashley is hormone-level simple; he trains his binoculars on her while she swims and sunbathes. As for Mr. Turner? Well, Kale is convinced that a young woman he saw entering the man's house one night never came back out. At least in one piece. And what's that story he keeps hearing on the news, the one about a missing woman who was last seen being picked up by someone in a 1960s Mustang?
Guess what Mr. Turner drives. ...
While Stewart had Grace Kelly and Thelma Ritter to carry out his investigation of the possible killer-across-the-way, Kale has geeky Asian classmate Ronnie (the amusing Aaron Yoo) on his team, and eventually Ashley, too (once he fesses up to and apologizes for his Peeping Tom ways).
They operate their stakeout with lots of gadgets, from cellphones to camcorders. But the story maintains its simple, ageless suspense.
It helps that the movie peppers its plot with shrewd observations on teen interaction — especially when Ashley visits Kale wearing a new 'do, and she finally has to sigh, "Did you even notice my hair?"
And when Kale finds out she's invited a lot of the school's popular kids to her house for a party, he snipes (with equal parts jealousy and hurt), "I just didn't think you would conform so fast."
There's also a clever dig at our paranoid, wiretapping times when Ashley suggests that they should back off and let Mr. Turner have his privacy. Kale protests, "Why does he want his privacy?"
A lot of the movie works because LaBeouf (of "Holes" and Michael Bay's upcoming "Transformers") is becoming a soulful, intelligent presence on-screen. He's beautifully matched in the is-he-or-isn't-he dance by Morse, with his head of aging-hippie hair and single earring. He's an actor with a well-oiled toggle switch between charming and sinister. (The weak link is Roemer, whose smug Ashley seems to love herself even more than Kale and Ronnie combined.)
As with a lot of thrillers, the setup is more interesting than the conclusion — which becomes a fairly standard if enjoyably brutal series of struggles, escapes and nerve-racking scenes of people creeping around spaces only serial killer Buffalo Bill could love.
One of its two screenwriters, Carl Ellsworth, wrote the refreshingly no-frills action flick "Red Eye." And, like that Hollywood thrill machine, "Disturbia" is more gripping than it has any right to be.

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Friday, April 20, 2007

Alec Baldwin explains tirade against daughter

As Alec Baldwin's angry words to his daughter were being broadcast around the world, the 49-year-old actor explained himself Friday on his Web site.
"Although I have been told by numerous people not to worry too much, as all parents lose their patience with their kids, I am most saddened that this was released to the media because of what it does to a child," he wrote. "I'm sorry, as everyone who knows me is aware, for losing my temper with my child. I have been driven to the edge by parental alienation for many years now. You have to go through this to understand. (Although I hope you never do.) I am sorry for what happened. But I am equally sorry that a court order was violated, which had deliberately been put under seal in this case."
The tension between Baldwin and his ex-wife, Kim Basinger, had erupted earlier when an angry phone message from Baldwin to his daughter was made public. The couple has been involved in bitter custody disputes over their daughter, Ireland, since their divorce in 2002.
The recording was published Thursday by celebrity news site TMZ.com, which said the call was placed on April 11.
"In such public cases, your opponents attempt to take a picture of you on your worst day and insist that this is who you are as a person," Baldwin wrote. "Outside the doors of divorce court, I have friends, I have respect from people I work with and I have a normal relationship with my daughter. All of that is threatened whenever one enters a court room."
Meanwhile, Baldwin's attorney, Vicki Greene, said she filed a court order Friday "to determine how the tape got leaked and to determine whether actions should be taken again Kim Basinger, or her attorneys, or Harvey Levin (who runs TMZ.com) and anybody else associated with the leaking of the tape and the violation of the court orders to keep the proceedings closed."
Greene told TV's "The Insider" that "anyone involved in this case should want to protect Ireland, so whatever happened was either intentional, reckless or negligent."
The matter is set for a hearing June 5, Greene said.
Basinger's attorney, Neal Hersh, weighed in the family saga Friday on TMZ.com.
"I am concerned that Mr. Baldwin's recent statement, wherein he attempts to shift responsibility to Kim and her lawyers for his issues with Ireland, shows just how out of touch he is with the reality and gravity of the situation," Hersh said.
On the recording, Baldwin can be heard admonishing his 11-year-old daughter, Ireland, "You are a rude, thoughtless little pig."
"You don't have the brains or the decency as a human being," he says, apparently upset that she did not answer her phone for a planned call.
"The mother and her lawyer leaked this sealed material in violation of a court order," Baldwin's spokesperson said Thursday. "Although Alec acknowledges that he should have used different language in parenting his child, everyone who knows him privately knows what he has been put through for the past six years."
"The voice mail speaks for itself," Basinger's spokeswoman said.
Baldwin, 49, and Basinger, 53, were married in 1993. They have been involved in prolonged legal disputes over custody and other issues since she filed for divorce in 2001, which was granted in 2002. The couple's differences have been aired several times in public.

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Gonzales seeks GOP support, gets little

One GOP member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, John Cornyn of Texas, predicted Gonzales would weather the furor and said he should. "Frankly, I don't think the Democrats are going to be satisfied with the resignation by Al Gonzales," he said.
Gonzales gave no indication Friday that he was leaving.
"Please know that as you continue your work, I am by your side," the attorney general told an audience of crime victims' rights supporters. He spoke in a gravelly voice the day after his long day of testimony.
Gonzales also called several GOP senators, including Cornyn and Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, the top Republican on the Judiciary Committee, an aide said.
Specter said Gonzales sounded "in good spirits."
"The attorney general did call me today and he said he was just checking with senators to see how the hearing went," Specter said Friday. "I told him, 'Everything I had to say about the hearing I've already said.'"
The Pennsylvania Republican also said he sent a letter to Bush about Gonzales, who Specter had said a day earlier had emerged from the hearing with his credibility tarnished. Specter would not reveal the contents of the letter.
White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said President Bush had spoken with Gonzales after Thursday's hearing, and she added, "The attorney general continues to have the president's full confidence."
There was little other evidence of support for Gonzales, who has been struggling to explain last winter's firings of eight federal prosecutors.
Sen. Sam Brownback (news, bio, voting record), a Kansas Republican who sits on the committee, issued a statement that notably did not urge Gonzales to remain in his post.
"Although his answers suggested that there were serious managerial issues at the Department of Justice, I did not see a factual basis to call for his resignation. As for whether the attorney general should resign, that is a question I leave to him and to the president," he said.
There were fresh calls from Democrats for Gonzales to step down. "The president should restore credibility to the office of the attorney general. Alberto Gonzales must resign," said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California.
Gonzales and other administration officials had hoped his appearance Thursday would produce a groundswell of support among Republicans, but there was little if any evidence of that.
Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell was traveling, and a spokesman referred reporters to noncommittal comments the Kentucky lawmaker had made on April 1.
"I think most Republican senators are willing to give the attorney general a chance to come up before the Judiciary Committee and give his side of this story, and are likely to withhold judgment about whether he can be effective in the Senate in dealing with us, until after we hear from him before the Judiciary Committee," McConnell had said at the time.
Sen. Mel Martinez of Florida, who doubles as the general chairman of the Republican Party, had no immediate reaction to Gonzales' appearance.
In several hours before the Judiciary Committee on Thursday, Gonzales said he had done nothing improper in firing the eight prosecutors, but conceded the case had been badly handled. At the same time, he said 71 times that he either could not recall or did not remember conversations or events surrounding the dismissals.
Alone among the nine Republicans on the committee, Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma called for Gonzales to resign.
Several other Republicans made plain their unhappiness.
Specter told Gonzales his description of events was "significantly if not totally at variance with the facts."
"Why is your story changing?" Charles Grassley of Iowa asked at one point, citing differences between an earlier explanation and the hearing testimony.
Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, after hearing the attorney general's account of the case, said, "Most of this is a stretch," and added it seemed to him that some of those dismissed "just had personality conflicts with people in your office or the White House and (officials) just made up reasons to fire them."
Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama expressed concern with Gonzales' memory at the hearing. In an interview later, he went further. "I think it's going to be difficult for him to be an effective leader," he said.
"At this point, I think (Gonzales) should be given a chance to think it through and talk to the president about what his future should be."
At the White House on Friday, Perino lavished praise on Gonzales. "He has done a fantastic job at the Department of Justice. He is our No. 1 crime fighter. He has done so much to help keep this country safe from terrorists."

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Greg Oden says he'll enter NBA draft

COLUMBUS, Ohio - Greg Oden is through with school. The 7-foot freshman center said Friday he will leave Ohio State to enter the NBA draft, where he figures to be one of the top two picks along with Texas freshman forward Kevin Durant.
Freshman teammates Mike Conley Jr. and Daequan Cook also said they will make themselves available for the draft. Unlike Oden, they have opted not to hire an agent for now — meaning they will retain the option of returning to school in the fall.
"This is a very tough decision for me," Oden said in a statement released by Ohio State. "I love OSU and love being a Buckeye, but I also have a great opportunity to take my game to the next level and compete with the best players in the world. I've discussed this with family, friends and Coach (Thad) Matta, and I feel the time is right."
The players were not available for comment. Conley is expected to be an honorary head coach for Saturday's Scarlet vs. Gray spring football game. Oden is out of town to attend his aunt's wedding.
At a news conference Friday afternoon, Matta said the departure of the three players, though not unexpected, would leave a hole in the program. Matta said he was proud of their accomplishments and hoped that the success of players such as Oden, coupled with the team's trip to the national championship game, will lure talented recruits.
"Honestly, it's been kind of a goal of mine to have a player selected as high as Greg is going to be," Matta said. "This is a situation where we've got to handle it and continue to build."
Matta said he thinks Oden had a tough time making the decision to leave and that he told him he understands his dream to play in the NBA.
Matta said he told Oden, "I think if you did come back and everyone came back, I think we would have a chance to be one of the greatest college basketball teams ever, but that's selfish on my part."
All three players were key figures this past season for the Buckeyes, who went 35-4 to set a mark for victories and won the Big Ten's regular-season and tournament titles before advancing to their first national championship game since 1962, where they lost to two-time champion Florida.
After getting a late start at Ohio State because of a wrist injury, the 19-year-old Oden lived up to his billing as a two-time national high school player of the year, leading the Buckeyes in scoring (15.7) and rebounding (9.6) per game and topping the Big Ten in shooting percentage (.616).
His best game may have been his last one, when he scored 25 points and had 12 rebounds while dominating the inside against Florida's Al Horford and Joakim Noah.
Oden had surgery on his right (shooting) wrist to reattach ligaments last June 16. He worked out with the team while wearing a cast that eventually became an elastic brace. After missing the first seven games, he came in and — despite shooting free throws and most of his other shots left-handed — had an immediate impact.
"If he's not remembered for what he did here I would be saddened by that," Matta said.
Oden and Conley — friends and teammates since the sixth grade in Terre Haute, Ind. — led Lawrence North High School in Indianapolis to three consecutive state championships and a 103-7 record.
The 6-1 Conley, who many believed was just a throw-in for recruiting Oden, ended up setting Ohio State records with 238 assists while handling the ball almost all the time against high-pressure defenses. His assist-to-turnover ratio was among the best in the nation at 2.77, with only 86 turnovers in 39 games — a little more than two per contest.
When Oden fouled out late in the Buckeyes' second-round NCAA game against Xavier — and Ron Lewis (news, bio, voting record) hit a clutch 3-pointer in the final seconds — it was Conley who scored 11 points in the overtime to lead Ohio State to a 78-71 victory.
The only knock on Conley is his outside shooting. He hit just 30 percent of his 3-pointers, although he was a 52-percent shooter from the field — mostly on layups after scissoring through defenses trying to double-team Oden.
"This has been an extremely exciting and challenging process for me," Conley said in the statement released by Ohio State. "It is my lifelong dream to play in the NBA.
Cook got off to a fast start for the Buckeyes, but wilted down the stretch. He was averaging more than 15 points a game midway through January before finishing at 9.8. After leading Ohio State in scoring seven times in its first 15 games, he failed to do it again over the Buckeyes' last 24 starts.
Cook started just one game all season for the Buckeyes, but the 6-6 swingman was their second-leading rebounder.
The deadline for players making themselves available for the draft is April 29. They can work out for NBA teams and gauge interest — as long as they do not have an agent — and have until June 18 to withdraw their names from the draft pool. Conley and Cook still could retain their Ohio State eligibility at that point.
The players are expected to be represented by Conley's father, Mike Conley Sr. He won the Olympic gold medal in the triple jump at the 1992 Games in Barcelona. In addition to running a company (World Sport Chicago) that helped garner that city the U.S. bid for the 2016 Summer Games, he also has created another sports-representation company (Mac Management Group) and applied to the NBA to be a player agent.
The elder Conley at first said that his son would not leave early, but then waffled as the Buckeyes went deeper and deeper in the tournament and his son's stock climbed.

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